Saturday, February 23, 2013

RSC Students on All-AZ Academic Team

Rio Salado College students Rebecca Park and Erin Brooke Earnest have been selected as members of the All-Arizona Academic Team. They celebrated their accomplishments earlier this week at an honors luncheon with more than 70 other team members from community colleges across Arizona.

Students are selected and ranked based on academic achievement, leadership, school participation, and service. First team students receive a $1,000 cash award, with students on the second and third team receiving $750 and $500 respectively. All team members also receive a tuition waiver at any one of Arizona’s state universities. The recognition is sponsored by Phi Theta Kappa, an international honor society for two-year colleges, the Arizona Board of Regents and the Arizona Community College Presidents’ Council.

Erin Earnest All-Arizona
Team Member

Third Team member Erin Earnest is a dual enrollment student at Xavier College Preparatory and Rio Salado College. She has been very active in both schools. She is a member of the National Honor Society for Xavier College Preparatory and a member of Phi Theta Kappa Honor Society at Rio Salado College. She is a member of the Xavier College Preparatory varsity swim team and has won four state championships with the team. She also has received awards for swimming and diving.

She said she wants to pursue a degree in psychology at either Arizona State University or the University of Arizona, after which she wants to attend graduate or medical school to become a psychologist with a focus on helping autistic children and adolescents.

Rebecca Park also placed on the Third Team. She lives in Eager, Arizona and has been taking online classes at Rio Salado College to earn an associate degree in paralegal studies.

Becky Park All-Arizona Team Member

She has been very involved with her community, volunteering with the youth in her local church and participating in a variety of service projects. She helped clean up neighborhoods, made blankets for orphanages and hospitals and gathered supplies for hurricane Katrina victims.

For Park, a mother of four, the flexibility of taking classes online gave her the opportunity she needed, while at the same time working to provide for her family.

“I’m really enjoying the setup, it’s been great that I can work and go to school,” she said.

Park’s goal is to transfer to Arizona State University to study Political Science and become a paralegal. Being selected for the All-Arizona Academic Team is a step in the right direction.

“It’s a good feeling, because I have tried to work hard and do well in school,” she explained.

Both students have excelled academically as well as in their communities and by winning a spot on the All-Arizona Academic Team they will also receive an additional $500 scholarship from Rio Salado College.
Park is excited for the next step of her education and feels confident that the Rio Salado College faculty has prepared her.

“The teachers really challenge you, they push you to work and to learn, so I feel like I am ready for a university,” she said.